Depressing Christmas Songs, Ctd

Okay, for sheer yule pathos it's hard to deny this little chestnut a place on your mantle of Christmas depression. Judy Garland singing "After the Holidays" on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Watching this force of nature near her booze-soaked end pleading to an imaginary lover who's about to bolt is a bummer on so many levels. The weepy piano tinkling at 1:58 with Judy mock reflecting on Christmases past make this the perfect viewing companion to your fourth straight-up glass of Christmas cheer in an empty room poorly illuminated by a dehydrated tree covered in lights you got at WalMart.

Supergay too. Sometimes I suspect Christmas is really a plot to advance the supergay. The kitsch, the artifice, the collective lie of good will, the power of superficiality, the naked materialism: it's all some super-ironic super-gay joke on all of us, right? Just don't tell Bill O'Reilly.

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